The New Girl (WIP)
by flootzavut
Summary: Ziva centric, but not all told from her POV. Inspired by the "the rest is still unwritten" challenge on NFA, and set some time after Ziva left NCIS. Another WIP (sorry!)
1. 1: Laylah

The setting is deliberately vague, partly because the area is so changeable and volatile and partly, to be honest, because the decision was made mostly on the basis of Ziva's known ability to speak Pashto and partly on the loving descriptions of the frontier/tribal regions of Pakistan/Afghanistan that I've been reading in Malala Yousafzai's autobiography.

In my head this is set somewhere in South/Central Asia, possibly in tribal/frontier lands, and definitely in the shadows of the Hindu Kush, but native Pashtuns and speakers of the language are widespread, and while I've read many, many books set in or around this area, it's a huge and varied bit of the world to which I've never been and about which I can't pretend to be remotely knowledgeable. All I can do is try my best and hopefully not offend anyone or write anything toooooo wildly out of place.

* * *

_LAYLAH_

* * *

The new girl was... different. Laylah hadn't been able to work out exactly what made her think that, but she was sure. Most of the people who came to work at the orphanage didn't make much of an impression. The women who ran it were fair but stern, and although many of the volunteers arrived with smiles on their faces and sometimes arms full of toys, by the end of the three months allowed on their visas, they looked as worn and grey as the permanent staff.

This new girl, though...

Laylah was nearly sixteen, and it was a source of great pride to her that she never let herself get attached to the volunteers, and that within days of their arrival she always knew, in her heart, why each person had travelled to this distant corner of the world. Some of them felt guilty - Laylah wasn't sure what for, but she could see it in their eyes, their desperate desire to make the children smile. Others worked as if they were trying to forget, or told stories from their own homes and their own scriptures, or were running away from something that hurt. Always, Laylah pronounced the new volunteers' intentions to the few other girls her own age within days of each new arrival.

This Ziva, though. Laylah could not decipher the look in her eyes. She was not even certain how old the woman was. Sometimes she looked no older than the sisters Laylah vaguely remembered from Before, not much older, perhaps, than Laylah was now. Certainly, Ziva was younger than the matrons who bossed her around, and whom she obeyed without question, even though sometimes Laylah thought she looked like she wanted to argue back. The volunteers who came here usually tried to change things, at least at first, and it surprised Laylah that Ziva seemed so meek. She didn't seem like a patient person, and Laylah saw her fingers twitch with irritation, but she never spoke out.

But at other times... at other times, when the day's work was done and Ziva was checking the dormitories, when she tucked a blanket round Laylah's pretend-sleeping form to keep out the bitter cold, Laylah would see an expression on her face that looked so old and so sad that she thought maybe Ziva was the oldest woman in the orphanage, after all.

Laylah did not like mysteries, and so she did not trust Ziva, even though her Pashto had an accent that somehow reminded Laylah of home, and her eyes were so kind and so deep when she smiled.

Laylah looked forward to the end of winter, when the new girl's visa would run out, and someone else would come whose motives she would be able to divine without difficulty.


	2. 2: Laylah

_A/N that moment when you realise that there's a chapter you somehow forgot to post two months ago... sorreeeeeeeee!_

* * *

**_LAYLAH_**

Laylah enjoyed the spring, when for a short while the weather was neither too hot nor too cold. Everyone was always much more cheerful when the sun started to shine and the snow retreated to distant mountains. It was easier to slip away, to avoid chores, to hide in a forgotten corner on the other side of the crumbling brick wall of the compound and pretend she was just a normal girl who would go back to her family once she had finished her book.

She was careful to always return the books she borrowed. Sometimes she would find a Quran placed with tender care on a shelf few of the girls were tall enough to reach. At other times she would spot a worn paperback discarded by a volunteer. Books were like promises. Her father had shown her how to sound out letters, and had been so proud when she had learned how to write her name. Sometimes she would scratch it in the dust with a finger, just to prove to herself that she remembered, but no matter which books she found and took to her private reading place, she had yet to find one she could read. Father had wanted her to be able to read and write, but that was Before. By the time she had reached the orphanage, no one had thought to make up for all the time she had lost. It was a waste, they said, to try and teach a girl of her age to read and write. It was too late. She had missed her chance.

Still, the book was comforting. The new girl, Ziva, had left it behind, and this was one book Laylah would never have to return. It had appeared mysteriously on her pillow after Ziva had gone away, and while Laylah had been suspicious, she could not resist the idea of a book that was hers alone.

To her dismay, she had found that she missed Ziva. Her eyes had stayed kind until the very end of her three months. Laylah had never learned to trust her, but she had grown used to her tender manner. Ziva's presence had become comforting, and now she was gone Laylah wished she would come back.

No one ever came back, though. So Laylah was completely unprepared, in late May, to see a familiar figure walking towards the gate. From her hidden spot, she looked harder, squinted against the bright sunlight, expecting to realise her eyes had deceived her.

But they hadn't. Ziva was back.


End file.
